Debates of June 14th, 2000

Canada Transportation Act

[The Deputy Speaker]

Is there unanimous consent for the hon. member to share his time?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Roy H. Bailey, Reform, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I was saying, this was a good committee, but I want to point out and make it very clear that the passage of this bill, and why we are supporting this bill, is not so much the content but the emergency that goes with it.

As Justice Estey said in committee, there is no choice. He said it is like having a gun at your head. When I asked the hon. justice what he thought about what the government had done to his recommendations, he said that it had every right to do so, but only 1 per cent. The government did exactly the opposite of what the hon. justice wanted.

I also want to make it abundantly clear that our support for this is for the short term gain, but there is going to be long term pain. Make no mistake about it. This bill will be back before the House within a year. The way the bill stands now, it does not address agriculture in the year 2000 on the prairies.

Even members in the caucus opposite knew what was wrong. They wanted a complete and open commercial system, but somehow through the back door they said “No, no, no”. It is all right for the potash companies to have an open agreement with the railways. It is all right for the coal companies to have an open agreement with the railways. But over 50% of all the money realized from the sale of farm commodities on the prairies today does not come from board grains handled by the wheat board. No consideration was given to that fact.

There was even an attempt to blame us for bringing in amendments, such as that brought by the member for Brandon—Souris, to bring the meaning of shipper into the year 2000. They said “No, we are trying to get at the wheat board”. The wheat board does not handle the goods whatsoever for which we wanted that meaning.

This reminds me of the poem about Casey at the bat. There was no joy in Mudville because mighty Casey struck out.

I was home on the weekend. There are some very disappointed producers who really thought the Estey and Kroeger report was going to go through. There is no joy in the producers, those same producers who appeared before the committee, the canola people who lost millions of dollars because for some reason there were four or five long trains backed up in Vancouver and their goods could not get to port.

When I asked in committee whose fault that was, there was no question it was the wheat board's fault. That is what they said; I did not say that.

What was the opinion of the majority of the people who came before the committee? The vast majority of people who came before our committee, the five major grain companies, basically said we should scrap the whole bill. That is why I say that this bill will be back before this house.

The individual producers, and there are going to be more of them, are worried because now the wheat board is taking on more of a role even to control the transportation industry.

The railways said if what is wanted is to save the farmers a lot of money in freight, as well as the grain companies, the five major grain companies which handle over 90% of all the grain, then let us go to an open accountable freight system. Somehow the wisdom opposite was to say no, they do not trust the people who handle more than 90% of the grain. They do not trust the pulse growers. They do not trust the canola growers. They do not trust anyone but themselves. And they do not trust the railways. Which stakeholders are left?

The government promised money for roads. I want to put it on the record that the money that has been allocated for prairie roads is going to be a pittance to what the government should have done with this bill and gone to an open commercialized system.

The day will come when those same people will not grow products that go to the wheat board because they do not trust it. That was the reason for Estey in the first place. I am not trying to condemn the wheat board. I am not trying to come through the back door or anything. All I am saying is I respect the grain producers, the barley producers, the pulse growers and the canola growers. I respect all of those farm organizations, the majority of which said to scrap the bill.

It makes good sense to get those points across. The majority of the witnesses and the majority of the stakeholders disagreed big time with this bill. We do have a gun at our heads. Therefore, we have decided that for temporary gain and the long term pain that could well be experienced by the producers, we will support the bill. But let the record clearly show that the Canadian Alliance pointed out the need to bring grain transportation into the year 2000 and not take it back to 1945.

We are going backward; we are not moving ahead, as the minister said. The move that was put into this bill is a concession by those people who want full commercialization. Those people said they will concede that and give a little bit of money and have 25% going into a tendering process and then it is not between the grain companies and the railways.

I have been living with this issue since 1996, a good year before I came to the House. No one in the House has been around and watched the failures of the grain handling system more than I have. I am not bragging, it is just a fact. It is just my age.

We had an opportunity to do something. We had an opportunity to move into the new century, but no, we had to play a little politics here. That is exactly what we did.

If I am still around and I suspect that I will be, we will be back debating this bill within a year's time because it is doomed to fail.

Who will take the blame the next time the canola or pulse shippers' cars cannot get to Vancouver because of unnecessary grain cars with no boats in the harbour? Who will take the blame for that? Nobody took the blame last time. It is always the railways' fault. The railways were told to take the grain there, but there can never be anybody but the railways to take all of the blame.

I am not here to support the railways. I am simply saying that for centuries now, when anything goes wrong it is blamed on the railways. As I said in a speech over a year ago, in our part of the country when the kids are in grade 6, part of the curriculum is how to hate the railways.

It is time we became honest with ourselves and with all of the stakeholders. This bill has not been honest with all of the stakeholders. This bill scrapped what the government spent thousands and thousands of dollars on simply because it was a good idea. We were ready for the 20th century, but somebody was not.

We will be back; I will be back. And let me say that the next time we are back on this issue, we will do it right. That will be the last time. We did not do it right the first time.

[Rick Casson, Reform, Lethbridge, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I would certainly like to commend my colleague, the member for Souris—Moose Mountain, for all the work he has done on this issue, his understanding of it and the hours and hours of endless committees where he carried the ball for the Canadian Alliance. I thank him for that.

One of the reasons we are looking at the grain transportation act and grain movement is that our primary producers in the grain and oilseeds sector are suffering. We need to look at ways to give them a little more cash in their pockets because it is a desperate situation.

There have been groups that have said that as much as $300 million could be left on the prairies if the grain transportation system was commercialized. That is $300 million. The estimate of the government as a result of this bill is $178 million. We will not stand in the way of any dollars flowing to the primary producers because they do need it.

I have a letter which was sent to me today by an organization which represents 90,000 farmers in western Canada, the Prairie Farm Commodity Coalition. The group represents the Alberta Barley Commission, the Alberta Canola Producers Commission, Alberta Marketing Choices Implementation Group, the Alberta Rye and Triticale Association, the Alberta Winter Wheat Producers Commission, the Prairie Oat Growers Association, the Saskatchewan Canola Growers Association, the Western Barley Growers Association, the Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association and the Western Producer Car Group.

This group represents 90,000 primary producers. Instead of giving some words here that could be construed to be just those of the Canadian Alliance, I would like to read the letter from the chairman of the group, Greg Rockafellow:

On June 8, 2000, the Prairie Farm Commodity Coalition was invited to make a submission to the House of Commons transport committee on Bill C-34 which is part of the government's so-called “reform” package on grain transportation. The position taken in the PFCC submission was that the grain transportation reform package put forward by the federal government is a sham, and will do precisely nothing to resolve the problems that have been studied for almost three years.

The consequences of the federal government's inaction on these problems will have profoundly negative effects on farmers, the grain industry and the federal government. The consequences for the federal government will come to bear during the next tie-up in grain movement, when vessels are once more lined up in Vancouver harbour, sales are lost, and Canada's reputation as a reliable supplier is further tarnished. The responsibility for this event, when (not if) it occurs, will rest fully on the federal government's shoulders.

It is our position that this package of so-called reform is in fact worse than the current situation. It moves the grain industry and the farmers back towards the old Crow rate regime which gave us nothing but inefficiency, system breakdowns and restricted investments. If the federal government was motivated in the smallest degree by principle, this package would be withdrawn. If members of parliament on both sides of the House wanted to do what is best for western farmers, they would vote against Bill C-34.

More serious than the loss of three years of study and discussion is the shabby political games that have been played in Ottawa by the government over the package. Putting forward this backward looking and empty set of proposals, and then accusing anyone who opposes it of “denying farmers $178 million in freight savings” is itself symptomatic of a government which is bereft of ideas and principle. This trap, however, is only one way among several in which the federal government has abused parliamentary democracy campaign over the last few weeks:

Railroading the package through with no opportunity for debate;

Having the farmers' presentations to the transport committee occur after the deadline for any amendments to be submitted to the committee for clause by clause consideration;

Bringing in the party whip to sit at the committee table, driving Liberal members who dared to criticize the package off the committee at the last minute, and replacing them with other MPs who had not heard the presentations of any of the witnesses.

We find it repugnant in the extreme that the federal government has put political gains ahead of the interests of farmers, has abused the democratic and parliamentary system, and has insulted the farm groups who travelled to Ottawa on their own time and at their own expense to provide their views on this disgraceful package.

Farmer representatives from the PFCC organizations spent all of last summer working in good faith on the Kroeger facilitation process. Each devoted considerable time and personal expense on the premises clearly stated on May 12, 1999, that the federal government had accepted Justice Estey's recommendations and Mr. Kroeger was to develop an implementation plan. Clearly, the only party that was not operating in good faith was the government, which had no intention of implementing the Estey report. The federal government's actions on this file over the past year have completely undermined any trust that we will have in the future in any consultation process.

That letter alone from an organization that represents 90,000 primary producers pretty much puts in black and white what this process has done and what it will not do. The faith the farmers put in the government has been totally destroyed.

As the member for Souris—Moose Mountain said, when this bill comes back the next time, it will be done right.

[Michel Guimond, Bloc, Beauport—Montmorency—Orléans, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak on behalf of the Bloc Quebecois to Bill C-34, which is intended to govern the transportation of grain, particularly in the west.

Right off, for the benefit of those watching, I will point out that our party, the Bloc Quebecois, will vote against this bill at third reading. We will do so for on simple reason, a matter of equity, or perhaps I should say a matter of inequity.

I would not want the members from out west to assume that this is another chapter in the unending dispute between eastern and western Canada. On the contrary. It is our view that the government has once again decided, using this bill, to pit the east against the west.

If this bill is passed, western producers will enjoy a considerable reduction in the cost of transportation, on the order of $178 million. This reduction will be achieved in the form of discounts that the two railway companies—Canadian National and Canadian Pacific—will be required to give western producers.

On behalf of my party, I say that this is unfair to eastern producers. When I say eastern producers, I am talking about producers from Quebec, but also those from Ontario.

The Liberal majority across the way often tells the members of the Bloc Quebecois, the Canadian Alliance or the Progressive Conservative Party that they are regional parties.

I would remind our Liberal friends opposite that we might ask ourselves whether the same is not true of them. We know that there are 155 Liberal members—

[An hon. member]

There are 157.

[Michel Guimond, Bloc, Beauport—Montmorency—Orléans, QC]

—the member from British Columbia tells me there are 157—and that 101 of these 157 members come from Ontario. We might therefore wonder whether the Liberal Party of Canada is not a regional party too—the regional party of Ontario.

I appeal to Ontario's farmers. Do they feel that they are well represented by the federal Liberal members from Ontario, the ones who are supporting this subsidy for western producers?

Moreover, my colleagues of the Canadian Alliance were certainly delighted to learn that this bill was rushed through a few days before the summer adjournment. This is a totally vote-seeking bill, one introduced literally to buy the votes of western farmers. They are being given some nice little goodies in order to win them over and to get their votes.

The Canadian Alliance will have to deal with this matter when the election comes around, which appears to be imminent for this fall. However, it seems obvious that this is a program aimed at buying the western farm vote.

I would like to take a few minutes to return to the $178 million cut the two rail carriers, Canadian National and Canadian Pacific, will be forced to make. I had the opportunity in the Standing Committee on Transport to question directly Mr. Tellier, the president of CN, and Mr. Ritchie, the president of CP, and their responses leave me concerned and confused.

What I asked them was this: we know that the rail carriers have, for the past 10 years, made the railway workers bear the brunt of their lack of productivity. As a result, when the financial reports were not to their liking, they announced major staff cuts when releasing their annual financial statements.

I wish to say that my Bloc Quebecois colleagues share those concerns. We are concerned that the companies, Canadian National and Canadian Pacific, not to name them, will be very tempted to have railway workers bear the brunt—because their job will be cut—of the $178 million drop in revenues the railroads will have to absorb.

We should remember today, June 14, 2000, because I am warning you that I will point out once again—I will no doubt have another opportunity to talk on this issue—that I predicted on June 14, today, that the railways will not absorb this $178 million within their operating costs. They will not pass it on to their shareholders through considerable dividends. They will not deprive their shareholders. They will deprive railway workers of their jobs because of the number of cuts resulting directly from Bill C-34.

Another reason we oppose this bill is that it changes the role of the Canadian Wheat Board without our knowing how these changes will affect its ability as a marketing agency to honour its commitments to grain producers and its clientele worldwide.

The Canadian Wheat Board is strange beast. It is an independent agency. A number of the members of its board are appointed by the government, as political payback. The Canadian Wheat Board tries to make us believe that it will, with this legislation, attempt to find the most cost effective shipping point and port for producers.

I would like to give an example. My colleague from Thunder Bay and I were members of a sub-committee on the future of the St. Lawrence Seaway. One of the Bloc Quebecois' demands has always been to have Manitoba wheat pass through Thunder Bay.

Why is a member of the Bloc Quebecois defending the Port of Thunder Bay? The answer is obvious. Because every tonne of wheat that goes through Thunder Bay has to go through the ports on the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence Seaway. This means that wheat that goes through Thunder Bay stands a good chance of being redirected into other bigger ships, in the ports of Montreal, Sorel, Trois-Rivières, Quebec City, Baie-Comeau or Sept-Îles.

That is why the Bloc Quebecois called on this government—and the government has not agreed to do this in Bill C-34, which we are debating today—to give preference to Thunder Bay and the St. Lawrence Seaway as an efficient way to move wheat to European markets in particular.

During the hearings on privatizing the St. Lawrence Seaway, which I attended in 1995 with the member from Thunder Bay, the then commissioner of the Canadian Wheat Board admitted to us that wheat headed for Belgium and Luxembourg went through the Port of Vancouver.

Is it more cost effective to ship a tonne of wheat out of the Port of Vancouver, when it has to travel down the west coast of the United States, go through the Panama Canal and travel back up north on its way to its final destination in Luxembourg or Belgium, essentially shipping wheat to western Europe through Vancouver rather than through Thunder Bay, when the ports of Montreal, Quebec City or Sept-Îles are a few hundred kilometres from western European ports?

Such thinking is the reason for a bill like this. That is why we in the Bloc Quebecois cannot support Bill C-34, because, for one thing, it does not help ports on the St. Lawrence.

Another feature of this bill with which the Bloc Quebecois has major difficulties is the fact that it contains provisions for $175 million worth of highway infrastructures for rural roads in the western provinces—yet another sop to western producers. I am sorry.

Once again, we have a double standard. Once again, Quebec is treated differently. The government will hand over $175 million to improve rural highway infrastructures in the west. Does this mean that the roads used to transport grain, the highway infrastructures for rural roads, are adequate? To ask the question is to answer it.

The Bloc Quebecois cannot accept bills such as Bill C-34, which create inequities.

Unfortunately, since I am running out of time, I will have to rush. The Minister of Transport himself recognizes that the reforms affecting the grain transportation and handling system will increase pressure on rural roads. I spoke about this issue already.

We will oppose Bill C-34 for the three reasons we have mentioned, the first one being the $178 million income reduction for railroad companies, both CN and CP, which will necessarily result in railway workers being laid off; the second is that nothing in this bill guarantees that there will be an increase in grain traffic, via the port of Thunder Bay, on the St. Lawrence ports network; and the third reason why we oppose this legislation is the $175 million budget allocated to upgrade rural roads, while no money is provided for eastern Canada. Quebec gets nothing, and nor does Ontario for that matter.

I see the chief government whip, who comes from the Cornwall area. There must be agricultural producers in that region and there must be rural roads around Cornwall. I am convinced that Ontarians could team up with Quebec on this issue because the situation is the same for both.

For these reasons, the Bloc Quebecois will vote against Bill C-34 at third reading.

[Dick Proctor, NDP, Palliser, SK]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to take part in this important debate today on Bill C-34. My only wish is that we had more time to debate and discuss this. I think we all felt that it was terribly telescoped, which is not to take anything away from the witnesses who presented to us last week.

However, in all honesty and clarity, I must say that for the government to have brought in background notes, a major press release on May 10 and then require a full three weeks before the House, the parliamentarians and the transport committee ever got to see the legislation was, it seemed to me, a strange way to run a railroad, if I could use that metaphor in this context.

Before I get into the thrust of my remarks, I want to comment briefly on the remarks made by the transport critic for the Bloc Quebecois and also the remarks made by the transport critic for the Canadian Alliance Party.

I would just say, first to the Bloc member, that he seems to be saying, if I understood him correctly, that this is legislation or a bill for western Canada and nothing for the people in Quebec. I would say to him, with respect, that the Crow's Nest Pass freight rate agreement predated the entry of Manitoba and Saskatchewan into confederation. We in those provinces are a long way from tidewater, whereas in Quebec, I would submit that most of the agriculture that is carried out in that province is very close to the St. Lawrence Seaway system and, indeed, to tidewater. One of the problems we have always had in western Canada is getting our product to market, which is why we have needed help for more than a century in this regard.

With respect to the member for Souris—Moose Mountain, the transport critic for the Canadian Alliance, I congratulate him on getting the only amendment that anybody got through that committee last week, in the rush, rush, rush that we were in, that I do not understand. He spent most of his speech denigrating this bill. The words that he used to emphasize it were short term gain for long term pain. However, at the end of the day the Alliance appears to be going to vote for this bill.

We in the New Democratic Party caucus will not being doing that. We took the position at second reading that we oppose the bill. We wanted to see some amendments. As I mentioned we received none. Specifically the only amendment that was acceded to was the one by the member for Souris—Moose Mountain and his party.

We just do not feel that the bill is deserving of support, notwithstanding what the Minister of Transport said about the taunting about $178 million and how it would look if we stand opposed to it on behalf of the producers who will be supposedly in receipt of the $178 million.

One of our concerns is that the memorandum of understanding between the government and the Canadian Wheat Board was not part of this process. The joint running rights open access question to be negotiated involves the CTA doing a review of it. It will be another shoe that will drop later on, some months from now.

Everyone in committee seemed to get very exercised about the fact that MOU was not a public document. Everyone seemed to be upset and wanted to point a finger at the Canadian Wheat Board for the delay. I suggest that procrastination on the part of the government in bringing forward the legislation should not result in a crisis in terms of due diligence on the part of the Canadian Wheat Board on this very important memorandum of understanding.

With regard to some of the amendments we moved that were all rejected by members opposite, we note that there is no productivity gains sharing. It has been identified by usually reliable sources that some $700 million have accrued to the railways since 1992 as a result of more fuel efficient locomotives, larger hopper cars, and particularly a significant downsizing in the workforce of the railways.

Prior to the dismantling of the Western Grain Transportation Act those productivity gains, those windfall profits, were shared between producers and the railways. They have not been shared since 1992, and there is nothing in the legislation which suggests that they will be shared in the future. That is one of our major concerns.

Also no rate differential disciplines are mentioned at all. It is single cars on branch lines versus single cars on main lines and the 3% differential. We have some real concerns about that. We believe it will come back to haunt people on main lines. It does not deal with single cars versus multi-cars on main lines. There are darn few single cars these days loaded on main lines.

We are also concerned about who will get the price premium. Depending on the calendar and what commodity is being shipped, there is nothing to ensure that we will be able to deal with that in an adequate way.

We need clear rules for short line revenue sharing. I thought we needed something on salvage. The Canadian government and Canadian taxpayers have spent many millions of dollars on upgrading railways. When a branch line is being sold off we think it should be net of any federal taxpayer money that has gone into it. It was an amendment moved by our caucus but not agreed to.

There is much to say on the bill, but I will keep my remarks as brief as I possibly can. Another member wants to participate in this debate and I do not want to shorten his time.

During the debate a very interesting remark was made. Someone who appeared before the committee quoted William Lyon Mackenzie King and said that the problem with most countries was that they had too much history and too little geography. King apparently said that in Canada we had too much geography and too little history. Frank Scott, a great Canadian poet, also said that Mackenzie King never did by halves what he could do by quarters.

That is how I feel about Bill C-34. All members in the House are being asked to accept the bill on blind faith. The transport minister said they got it right. I am not sure that they got it right.

What if the five, six or seven major grain companies that are around these days go through a streamlining process and are reduced to two or three in the future? What if the two railroads are merged into one, perhaps dominated by the United States? How will competition work, which is the be-all and end-all according to the government?

We are very concerned. The minister responsible for the wheat board said that it was time to stop the bickering, that it was time most people agreed. Most of the expert witnesses that came before the committee had many concerns about the bill. I think the concerns are growing rather than diminishing.

I was also disturbed when the Minister of Transport said that they had it right but recognized that the railways and the grain companies were not very happy with it. Mark my words. We will be back here in a few months and there will be additional sops to those two institutions because they have perhaps not been treated as fairly as the government would want. It will be making the necessary adjustments to correct that in the near future. Those are my remarks. Our caucus will be opposing Bill C-34 at third reading.

[Rick Borotsik, Progressive Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I extend my thanks to the member for Palliser who has allowed me to speak as the last speaker to this bill. We can get on with life after my few comments.

At the onset of my seven minutes or so I thank the transport committee. I do not normally sit on that committee. Nor does the member for Palliser. Nor does the member from the Canadian Alliance. Normally we sit on the agriculture committee, but we sat on the transport committee specifically because we had a bit more knowledge with respect to western grain transportation than perhaps my own colleague who was sitting on the transport committee.

I thank the chairman of the transport committee who is in the House today. I thought he did a very commendable job. He was fair. He was honest. He was open in the process. I also thank members of the government who sat on that committee. They were very attentive. They listened to the petitioners and the witnesses that came forward with very logical presentations and points of view.

From that point on it sort of went downhill, but let us talk about the process itself. I must spend a couple of seconds dealing with that. The process is certainly a prime example of the manipulative process the government has put into place with respect to this piece of legislation.

As was mentioned earlier, this was not something that snuck up on us. This was not an issue that jumped out of the hall closet. We had to fix this problem. Rail transportation in western Canada has been an issue for years and decades. As a matter of fact, for three years now the particular issue has been studied by what I consider to be two of the best known experts in the industry, a gentleman by the name of Justice Willard Estey and another gentleman by the name of Arthur Kroeger.

These individuals put forward a process that was very gruelling and grinding. They came forward with what they thought were the necessary changes to the system. A systemic change was necessary. Mr. Kroeger came forward in September 1999 with his report based on the Estey report. Mr. Kroeger said that in order to make it work we would have to change the system. It had to become a commercialized system. On May 10 the three ministers came together at a press conference and told us what they would put together with this piece of legislation.

What happened between September 1999 and May 10, 2000, is kind of a black hole. I suspect the Canadian Wheat Board had a lot of ongoing negotiations with the minister responsible for the Canadian Wheat Board to try to fix the problem to the best of its advantage, not to the advantage of producers, not to the advantage of what Mr. Kroeger and Mr. Estey saw was a commercial system.

Between May 10 and when we received this piece of legislation is again kind of a black hole, a bit of a vacuum. All of a sudden there is an urgency and a necessary 11th hour demand that the legislation had to be passed before the House rose for its summer recess. We had to have it in place by August 1, the crop year.

I do not disagree that we need to have the legislation in place so that it can take effect for the next crop year. What I disagree with is the process the government followed to get it there. There was an 11th hour requirement. All stakeholders were asked to come together for two grinding and demanding days of committee hearings so they could tell us what was right and what was wrong.

The Minister of Transport is either delusional or is totally under a misconception. He stood before us and said that they must have got it right, that everybody liked the legislation. I sat through those two grinding days of hearings. Not one person, not even the Canadian Wheat Board, said that what was being proposed was the right legislation for the system. Out of the 30 witnesses that appeared nobody came forward and said “Hallelujah, you got right”. In fact I heard quite the opposite.

Organizations like the Hudson Bay Route Association said to scrap it, that it was not good. I heard other producer organizations come forward and say that what had been done would exacerbate the problem of rail transportation in western Canada. A rail coalition came forward and said nothing in the legislation indicated who would be accountable for transportation. We would still have the finger pointing of the past and the system would still break down. Not one organization or producer group said that it was the right thing to do.

Let us talk about what is not right. What is not right is the fact that this is not a commercial system. The legislation allows 25% of the business now performed by the Canadian Wheat Board to be tendered. That is wonderful. It also says, and I have also heard it, that the Canadian Wheat Board will control not only the tendered portion but the untendered portion. It will rebalance that tendered and untendered portion to the two railways. That is not a commercial system. It is a manipulated system between the Canadian Wheat Board and the railroads.

There is a monitoring process that is very positive. The monitor is a third party that will be chosen by the government. The monitor will report to three ministers. It will not report to parliament, except for once a year which was a minor amendment that was put through. Unfortunately it will not be open and transparent like the government said it would be.

What happened when we got to the amendments at committee level turned my faith off with respect to the particular process. We listened to some very good people make some very good presentations. The government then decided to take some members from the committee who I believe were very understanding, knowledgeable and supportive of some of the changes. It replaced them with individuals who had never listened to the presentations and never understood what was going on.

Believe it or not, we had the wonderful opportunity of having the whip of the government party sitting in during the voting on those amendments. I have a lot of respect for the whip, but why was it necessary for him to come in at the 12th hour to make sure government members would toe the party line? Was it necessary?

We will support this legislation not because the government got it right but because there is a carrot being dangled to my producers who desperately need some financial recompense. One hundred and seventy-eight million dollars may—and I stress may—go back to them from the revenue cap on the railroads. That is not a given in itself. We do need that $178 million to go back to producers, plus much more. If we had a truly commercial system, I believe that $178 million could have been $350 million.

I will reluctantly support this legislation, but the government did not get it right. We will be back in the House within three years to deal with other issues. We will be back in six months.

[The Deputy Speaker]

Is the House ready for the question?

[Some hon. members]

Question.

[The Deputy Speaker]

The question is on the motion for third reading of Bill C-34. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Some hon. members]

No.

[The Deputy Speaker]

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Deputy Speaker]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Deputy Speaker]

In my opinion the yeas have it.

[An hon. member]

On division.

[The Deputy Speaker]

I declare the motion agreed to on division.

(Bill read the third time and passed)

The House resumed from June 13 consideration of the motion that Bill C-37, an act to amend the Parliament of Canada Act and the Members of Parliament Retiring Allowances Act, be now read the third time and passed.

Parliament Of Canada Act

[The Deputy Speaker]

It being 5.30 p.m., pursuant to order made on Monday, June 12, 2000, the House will proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the motion at third reading stage of Bill C-37.

Call in the members.

(The House divided on the motion, which was agreed to on the following division:)

Division No. 1365

[The Speaker]

I declare the motion agreed to.

(Bill read the third time and passed)

[The Speaker]

It being 6:07 p.m., the House will now proceed to the consideration of Private Members' Business as listed on today's order paper.